"I had to learn how to help my friend"
It was hard for me to accept that my friend Jordi had anorexia. Probably because eating disorders mostly affect women and because women have more social pressure that makes us worry about our image, we forget that boys and teenagers can also have this disorder. And this also complicates the diagnosis.
The first signs began in adolescence. We would stay for lunch at school and, at first, it seemed that he didn't like the food in the cafeteria. Little by little, this selection of food tastes turned into a speech about wanting to take care of his diet and opting for a healthy diet . Then, you saw that, little by little, he was restricting more foods, reducing the amount of food he consumed and the lies appeared. Pious lies that he used to distract the attention of those around us. But his arguments about food and his body image were increasingly strict. Then expressions of fear of gaining weight and the possibility of becoming an obese person began to appear. The disorder developed slowly, which as a friend was hard for me to see, because you don't want to intervene in the personal lives of your friends. But it got to the point that Jordi stopped making plans with us when there was food involved. This was the trigger for our concern as a group of friends.
Jordi Figuerola Pérez
I remember talking to him on the steps of Sant Cugat station or in front of the pavilion, and he would deny me the evidence. I would show him everything he had done in those last few days with the food at school: secretly throwing it away, asking the cook who served us to put a little in it, inventing stomach aches so he wouldn't eat or so they would put him on a diet. It seemed that on the days he was most receptive I would see him playing with his food, doing strange things so he wouldn't eat. Because he showed this control over himself, it seemed like he would end up controlling the situation . He would tell me "I know, but I'm in control." Very often, the fear of thinking that a friend might have an illness or disorder leads to the easy way out of minimizing the situation, of not seeing unhealthy behaviors, of justifying everything. In short, of denying the evidence.
And the day came, the day he became defensive and we couldn't help him with advice or by being his controllers. He was already running away from us. He just wanted to be thin, it became like an addiction.
The fear of thinking that a friend may have a disorder often makes us justify certain behaviors and deny the evidence.
As a friend, you can support them and give them advice, but there comes a time when their food blockage completely dominates them, and they are so afraid of gaining weight that they manifest a distortion of their self-image. They can't even look at themselves in the mirror or in a shop window. When this uncontrolled situation arrived, and we saw that they were losing weight, we went to talk to the tutor, because we saw that we could no longer do anything , they no longer paid attention to us. And the tutor talked to the family.
When healthy eating becomes an obsession
The support of friendships
Years later, this situation led us as a group to have a chat, where he is not there, to share Jordi's physical and emotional state and also to give each other advice and improve our help and support. It is important to have information about how he is at all times; there are days when he cannot bear to hear about food or when making a comment about other people's bodies sinks him.
After almost twenty years, the disorder is still there. It has gone through extremely critical moments, but it is now recovering, thanks to the external help of specialized professionals, dieticians, psychiatrists and support groups.
On this long and bumpy road, it is essential to have a good support network. It is important that we are always there.
What we friends have to do is explicitly ask him how he wants us to help him, what we can do to help him , and he, with the help of the therapists, guides and teaches us how we can help him, how we should approach him regarding food. I remember one day he told us: "Please, don't talk about food"; or he also asked us not to give him "too much encouragement". His therapist gave us a series of tips and guidelines , since, often, you don't know how to help him. We are also learning in this whole process and this struggle that Jordi is facing every day.
When words hurt
We must be aware that treatment is long and hard, for the person and for those around them. For this reason, a good support network is essential to be by their side, both in good times and in bad. On this long road full of ups and downs, it is important that we are always there.
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